The forest fire video monitoring systems intended for detecting and locating forest fires are relatively new. However, their importance is ever growing, as the problem of forest fires can rightly be considered as one of the most serious and unresolved human problems at the moment. Forest fires occur and cause great damage in many countries of the world, as evidenced by wildfires in Russia in summer of 2010 which had disastrous consequences, including failure to comply with early detection and location of the fires, as widely discussed in detail in mass media.
In a typical case illustrated in FIG. 1, the forest fire video monitoring system 100 includes one or more remotely controlled video monitoring points 110 and one or more associated automated operator workstations 120 to properly operate the video monitoring points 110.
The equipment 120 of an automated operator workstation, in general, is based on well-known computer and communication technologies, and it typically comprises a computer with special and general purpose software that is configured for remote data exchange. Hardware and general purpose software (e.g., operating system) forming part of such a computer are well known in the art. Thus, the term “computer” can refer to a personal computer, a laptop, a set of interconnected computers, etc. with characteristics that meet the requirements of the system 100. The computer has a display device coupled thereto that displays, when the computer is operated, a graphical user interface (GUI) associated with a specialized application by which the operator visually monitors the territory and controls the video monitoring points 110. Interaction with the elements of the graphical user interface is performed by means of well-known input devices connected to the computer, such as keyboard, mouse, etc.
Such an operator workstation can be arranged in a specialized control and monitoring center. The presence of multiple workstations 120 allows to distribute the load among multiple operators to thereby improve the quality of detection.
Each video monitoring point 110 is substantially a transmission-side equipment 111 arranged on a high-rise construction 112.
The high-rise construction 112, in general, can be any high-rise construction which meets the requirements imposed on the system 100 (i.e. adapted to accommodate the transmission-side equipment at a sufficient height and configured to inspect large areas), and is usually a communication service provider tower, mobile operator tower, television tower, lighting tower, etc.
Generally, the term “transmission-side equipment” 111 denotes equipment which is arranged on the high-rise construction 112 and comprises a controlled video device 113 and a communication module 114 for communication/data exchange with the operator workstation(s) 120.
The controlled video device 113 is generally a digital video camera 115 (i.e., a device that converts electromagnetic waves of the optical range, or of a range close to the optical range, into an electrical signal) equipped with a zoom 116 (i.e., with an appliance designed for zooming in/out an acquired image) and mounted on the rotating device 117 which enables to mechanically change the orientation of the video camera 115 with high accuracy.
The transmission-side equipment 111 also includes a camera control unit 118 connected to the communication module 114, the video camera 115, the zoom 116, and the rotating device 117, and intended for general control over the functions of the controlled video device 113 as a whole and its components in particular. In this manner, upon receipt of control signals from the operator via the communication module 114, the control device 118 is adapted to set the required spatial orientation of the camera 115 (for example, to aim it at an object to be monitored), by operating the rotating device 117, and/or to perform zooming in/out of the picture of the object under surveillance from said camera, by operating the zoom. In addition, the control unit 118 is adapted to determine the current spatial orientation of the video camera 115 and provide data on its current spatial orientation through the communication module 114 to the requesting party (in particular, to the operator workstation 120 where the data, for example, is displayed in the graphical user interface). The functional capabilities listed here are the well-known properties of modern controlled video camera assemblies available on the market.
Generally, the control device 118 is a microprocessor-based hardware unit, like a controller or a microcomputer, programmed in a known manner and/or programmable to perform the functions assigned to it, which should be obvious to those skilled in the art. The programming of the control unit 118 can be performed, for example, by flashing its firmware, which is well known in the art. Accordingly, the video camera control device 118 is typically connected to a storage device (e.g., an integrated flash memory) which stores the related software or firmware which, when executed, implements the functions associated with the control device 118.
The operator workstations 120 may be connected to the monitoring points, both directly and via a communication network (e.g., a network 130) using well-known and broadly used wired and/or wireless, digital and/or analog communications technologies, and thus the communication module 114 of the video monitoring point and the computer communication interface of the operator workstation 120 should meet the communication standards/protocols for establishing such a communication link.
The exemplary network 130, to which the video monitoring points and the workstations 120 are connected, can be an address network, such as the Internet. If the video monitoring point 110 is near a communication channel belonging to an external provider, which is commonplace, then it is preferable to use this channel to connect the transmission-side equipment 111 to the Internet. If the video monitoring point 110 can not be connected directly to the Internet, then the well-known wireless broadband technologies (e.g. WiFi, WiMAX, 3G, etc.) are used for communication between the transmission-side equipment 111 and an Internet access point. In a similar way, the operator workstations 120 are connected to the network 130. For example, depending on the implemented access technology, a modem (including a wireless one), a network interface card (NIC), a wireless access card, etc., which can be external or internal in relation to the computer of the operator workstation 120, can be used for connecting to the network 130.
The system 100 also preferably includes a server 140 which is connected to the network 130 and which is delegated with the functions of centralized management over the totality of video monitoring points 110 and their interaction with the operator workstations 120 to ensure reliable operation of the system 100. The server 140 is usually a high-performance computer or a set of interconnected computers (for example, a blade server chassis) having specialized server software installed thereon and a high speed (e.g. optical) connection to the Internet. The hardware/software implementation of such a server is obvious to those skilled in the art. In addition to the general functions of managing the system 100, the server 140 can perform a variety of highly specialized functions—for example, it can operate as a video server that provides intermediate data processing and sends the processed data to a user upon request.
The description of specific implementations of data/signal exchange between the video monitoring points 110, the operator workstations 120, and the server 140 via the network 130 is omitted, because they are widely known in the art.
With such a method of implementing the forest fire video monitoring system, a single user is able to monitor a large enough controlled territory, while manipulating multiple cameras at a time. In addition, due to the above characteristic functional capabilities, the ability is provided to automatically quickly locate the source of fire visible from multiple cameras, using the well-known azimuth method, and to store in memory (e.g., in the server 140 or in the computer of the operator workstation 120) predefined patrol paths for quick access thereto and monitoring thereof. Here, “patrol path” refers to a predefined sequence of changing the camera orientation to obtain visual information regarding the required predetermined area.
It should be noted that performance of modern electronic hardware allows to create based thereon imaging and control devices among the components of the forest fire video monitoring system with a wide user functionality, which greatly simplifies the operator's work. In addition, modern hardware, with special software executable thereby, can take over some of the functions of automatic detection of potentially dangerous objects on video or still images obtained from the video cameras (when monitoring forests, such objects may be smoke, fire, etc.). Such computer vision systems intended to find dangerous objects in images can use a priori information about the features of smoke or fire, for example, specific movement, color, brightness, etc., or other indicia of fire, for example, they can detect warm air from fire with a thermal imager, or they are able to detect emissions of certain gases with a gas analyzer. Such computer vision systems are used in many industries, ranging from robotics to security systems, which is described in detail, for example, in “Computer Vision: Modern Approach”, David Forsyth and Jean Ponce, Williams Publishing, 2004, 928 sheets. In this context, an intrinsic characteristic of automatic detection based on computer vision is the probability of false alarm and target missing that must be reduced by all means in each video monitoring system.
Such an intelligent subsystem that implements the indicated computer vision technologies can be also deployed in the operator workstation 120, the server 140, and even in the controlled video device 113 itself.
Above is the generalized structural description of a typical modern forest fire video monitoring system which operates based on the usage of controlled video cameras. The given generalized description is not implied as exhaustive and is just intended for assistance in better understanding of the invention which is described in detail below.
The known examples of such forest fire video monitoring systems are ForestWatch (Canada), IPNAS (Croatia) and FireWatch (Germany). Similar systems have been developed in the Russian Federation (for example, “Klen”, “Baltika”, “Lesnoi Dosor”).
It should be noted that development and deployment of such forest fire video monitoring systems has become possible only in last few years. Only now, the number of cell communication towers is such that they cover the main fire risk areas, thereby minimizing infrastructure costs. In addition, broadband Internet services have also become much more affordable, which allows to exchange with large amounts of information and transmit real-time video over the Internet, and the cost of equipment for wireless communications over long distances has reduced. It should be further noted that detection of forest fires with cameras started from the beginning of century XXI, but the systems proposed by that time were composed of primitive rotatable cameras and the operator's screen which was to be in close proximity to the point of video monitoring. In practice, the proposed systems could not be scaled up and used for detecting fires even within a single forest district, not to mention big regions.